Eyes that seek but can't erase
by betcher
Summary: The name scrawls itself across Johnny's wrist one morning, when he's ten. The smoky lens of his goggles blurs the line between skin and ink, but it's legible all the same. Huddled under blankets, shining a flashlight on his arm in a makeshift pillow fort, Ruthie squints at the messy scrawl. "Huh," she says finally. [Strontium Dog] Soulmate!AU


The name scrawls itself across Johnny's wrist one morning, when he's ten. The smoky lens of his goggles blurs the line between skin and ink, but it's legible all the same. He stares at it for a good hour, memorizing every strangely jagged line, until he snaps out of it and runs out of his room, shouting in excitement. It was kind of a strange name though, not a proper one. Not like Ruthie's who had _Nigel_ on her wrist.

Not that she sees it that way. Huddled under blankets, shining a flashlight on his arm in a makeshift pillow fort, she squints at the messy scrawl.

"Huh," she says finally. "I don't think I've seen that one before." But then her face brightens, and the sight of it cheers John up. "But aren't you lucky? Much more exciting than Nigel, that's for sure. _"_

John shyly agrees.

He shows it to his mum next. In between reading her a new book he found in the library about this historical figure named Augustus, he tells her the news. For the first time in a while, color returns to her cheeks and gives him a smile that actually reaches her eyes. John tries not to think about how it's the most alive she's looked in months, and instead industrially rolls up his sleeve to show her the writing on his wrist.

"Oh." she says, brows furrowed. John isn't sure if that's a good oh or a bad oh, and he asks her, but she just smiles at him and takes his hands in her own. "You're a very lucky boy, John," she tells him as she taps him on the nose. "There's somebody out there in the world, made just for you, and there'll a symmetry to it - a pull."

Something like the universe coming together in the most unlikely ways to nudge certain people together in each other's orbits. Someone who will fit him just like a puzzle piece, and they'll all be the better for it, no matter what form that bond takes. Or that's how it goes, anyway.

He's not a little kid, he knows that there's more to it than that, but he can't help feeling happier all the same. But before he slips back to his room, she tells him very gently not to show his father. John is a little confused, because, well, why wouldn't he? But then he remembers the look on dad's face when he showed him his model of the Greater London Crater, and the slap of rejection, and thinks maybe mum is right this time not to bother him about it. They pinky promise to keep it between them, locking another secret in place. Her and John and Ruthie.

When it's bed time, he lies awake with the knees tucked under his chin, staring at his wrist, and spends hours thinking about what kind of person his soulmate is. Maybe they'll be his best friend. John hasn't really had any friends before, and he thinks it might be fun to find out. Ruthie doesn't count, not really, because she's his sister.

But try as he might, he can't imagine somebody who would love him unconditionally, even with his defective eyes and goggles all. They would have to live somewhere where it's always dark to live a normal life, like Ruthie always reassures him. And who would want to live in a place where it's just dark all the time? It's depressing, even John thinks so. And to be totally fair, who would want a, a soulmate who could die just by accidentally knocking their goggles off? They might get fed up with him and yell at him, like his dad does. But it's even worse when he stops speaking to him, or even looking at him. Like he's trying his hardest to forget that John exists. He doesn't want _Wulf_ to look at him like that.

"Stupid," he mutters to himself. "This is stupid."

John burrows deeper into the covers and tries not to cry.

He fails miserably.

* * *

Of course, soon after that, he goes to school and discovers that he _can_ take his goggles off after all. He tells dad the good news. Things start to make sense, very quickly. The words _freak_ , _monster_ , _disgusting_ , is bandied about. _Mutant_. His father was ugly before, but now he is a monster, the last thin veneer of humanity stripped from his sentiment once there is no need for false pretenses and appearances. John is a prisoner in his own home, but escapes thanks to the same powers that kept him there in the first place.

The final missing piece of the puzzle of his whole life is put in place - the goggles, the excuses, the endless disdain, why he couldn't go to school with the others like a normal kid, and comes to several other realizations dependent on that.

Wulf has to be a mutant name.

He runs, straight into the arms of the mutant army. They're reluctant to take in a kid as young as he is, but once he shows them what he can do, they have no other choice. He always makes sure to keep an eye out for anyone particularly shaggy or, well, wolfy. Mutant epithets tended to be very obvious, or slightly on the nose. Like Smelly Quinn, or Middenface McNulty. So he figures, with a name like Wulf? Should be easy enough.

But it's really not.

He asks around, but nobody ever answers to the name Wulf. He rises up the ranks, in the eyes of General Armz's esteem and the troops as well, and shoulders a heavier burden of responsibility as he ages, but never more than he can handle. Two years pass and he still hasn't met his soulmate but there's plenty else to be busy with, so he works on being the best he can be instead. Eventually, a thought strikes him. Maybe they're in another division, fighting the good fight on the other side of the country. That's the thought that prompts him to say yes without hesitation when Armz asks him to liaise with another division for a mission that needs his specific abilities.

That's where he meets Mardi. She has a mohawk and a wicked sense of humor, and she shares a cup of tea with him in the middle of the night. She doesn't have a soulmate, but thinks it's better that way because then she has the freedom to choose her own path. She has a way of sounding like everything she says makes perfect sense, with such a conviction in her voice that Johnny is almost jealous of her. He smiles back at her, and his heart thumps in his chest.

He sees her on the same mission the day after. She's his contact, but that doesn't make any sense. A horrible suspicion makes him scan her, and under her clothes, there are rows and rows of explosives strapped around her waist. He pleads with her, but her eyes have a calm glean in them he hadn't seen before. No, that's a lie. It was always there, he'd seen it before when she talked about Blood Moon, and his stupid snecking theories of the future generation. He grabs at her arm and the lies fall out of his mouth without hesitation; Kreelman's not here, he's the decoy, let's just snecking go, please, there's no point, but she apologizes and says this is necessary for the cause, and spreads her arms wide. It's a statement, alright.

He doesn't remember much of the journey back to headquarters, but he's drenched in blood and gore, stringy bits that used to be a person he admired not a day ago, and his hair smells like smoke and his insides feel like ashes. There's no place for anything to grow in ashes.

From then on, he doesn't try looking for his soulmate again. He throws himself heart and soul into the war, and never does find his counterpart. Any time he spends chasing up on it is time spent distracted from the war efforts, and more people will die if he doesn't dedicate himself entirely. But at the conclusion of the war, when the dead are counted and the treaty is signed, he does feel a twinge of regret when he boards the shuttle that would exile him from earth forever. Everyone that leaves, Johnny is already familiar with.

He feels bad for Wulf, still this shadowy concept in his imagination, who might never be able to meet Johnny. The galaxy's a big place, and the likelihood of them meeting by chance is infinitesimal. But Johnny wouldn't have made a great soulmate to begin with. And if this is what it took to secure mutant rights - so be it. He doesn't need a partner, and he's been doing just fine for the last seven years without one. Bounty hunting he'll do alone too.

* * *

"Your tongue lies - but your eyes speak the truth, weirdling! Well, Wulf Sternhammer does not fear you!"

Johnny almost chokes on his own spit. He stares, thinking. You can't be serious. Johnny stares, because of course his soulmate would be found two thousand years into the past, and he'd be _the same viking that is currently trying to kill him under the mistaken belief that he was a demon_. And there's no time to be having an existential crisis about the sheer ludicrousness of the situation, because he's fighting for his life. And soulmate he might be, but Johnny isn't pulling any punches.

He doesn't shoot him though. That would be remarkably short sighted.

One warning shot later, they all come to a wary truce, and Johnny presents his case; but not before introducing himself. "My name is Johnny Alpha," he offers, significance lurking under his words like a landmine, and he waits for the inevitable explosive reaction.

Wulf has no reaction to his words and just nods like everybody else. Johnny suppresses the slight pang of disappointment at the false lead and gets to work explaining time travel instead. Who knows, maybe Wulf is a popular name here. Maybe the name on his counterpart's wrist is John. Not that he's too sure how he would react if that were the case. Reject them entirely, he supposed. There was no universe in which Johnny Alpha would accept or believe in a system that would put the name John Kreelman on another's wrist.

But those are all secondary concerns. Johnny'd made it through twenty-two years of his life without meeting his soulmate, whoever it was, and he'd be fine not knowing. For now, they have a timeline to save and Johnny doesn't have time to be distracted about the closest call he's had so far. Wulf isn't a bad sort, though. After the initial dust-up, Johnny finds that he hides a wicked sense of humor and a surprisingly perceptive intellect behind his strangely antiquated phrases, and somewhat of a golden heart under all that hair. And in combat, he's a dream to Johnny and a nightmare to their foes, and he is incredibly, painfully loyal to the end. All in all, Wulf is a solid presence at his back Johnny is grateful to have.

Considering, Johnny really should have seen this coming. Once the dust has settled, and Max Bubba and his gang have been safely deposited in a holding cell in the 22nd century, Wulf offers – no, demands to accompany him, citing an unreturned life debt. Johnny admits it – he can be selfish, but taking Wulf away from the opportunity to ever know his soulmate just to drag him into the lurid, bounty-hunting world of a strontium dog rankles him, even if at the same time he's touched by the gesture. Wulf refuses to budge; he is very obstinate on the fact.

"You sure? You'd be leaving your soulmate behind," Johnny tries, finally, because he feels somewhat obliged to at least make that attempt. "It's not very likely you'll find them here."

And to that, Wulf just smiles mysteriously. "I trust the fates would lead me to the right path to my soulmate, strange it may be. We would not be soulmates otherwise, jah?"

Wulf must have seen the look of incomprehension on Johnny's face, because he removes the leather bracer he's been wearing this whole time and shows him his forearm, where a runic drawing of a sunburst lies. A curved line encircles the jagged spikes, and if Johnny tilts his head a little, it almost looks like an... eye? He looks up at Wulf, who winks at him. It dawns on him, slowly and finally, and it's almost embarrassing how long it takes. Wulf wags a finger at him, seeing the change in his face. "So you see, I am staying, and that is final!" he states firmly.

Johnny clears his throat. "Put that way," he says with a smile, something like excitement blooming in his chest. "I don't see I have any other choice."

Wulf laughs boomingly, and slaps him hard on the back. "Lead the way, my friend!"


End file.
